This tutorial shows you how to install Puppy Linux to a DOS formatted HD. To install Puppy
onto a HD with a pre-existing OS present (i.e. Windows) to achieve a dual boot setup, is
not covered in this how-to. If you follow this sequence, you'll end up with a HD with only
Puppy Linux and MS-DOS installed.

Software You Need:
1. A bootable copy of Puppy Linux 1.0.4 on a CD.
2. Darik's Boot and Nuke(DBN) on a Floppy.
3. MS-DOS 6.22 - usually on 3 floppy discs.

To format your Hard Drive, you could install MS-DOS onto your HD, then run 'format c:'
I prefer totally wiping out the HD using DBN, then installing MS-DOS.

Let's begin.

1. DBN How:
1. Put the DBN floppy in the drive and restart the computer (the BIOS might have to be
adjusted to boot from floppy).

2. DBN will load. At the first prompt ("boot:") type quick then press Enter. DBN will now
start to erase the HD. This will take between 15 and 60 minutes - or longer - depending
on the capacity of your HD. Remove the DBN floppy as soon as the wipe sequence starts.

DBN will go through 100 wipe cycles. You can see the numbers in the far left cell. If you
get bored, you can abort the wipe at any stage and still have a wiped HD - although not
fully wiped. When finished, partition HD & install MS DOS.

2. Partition HD using fdisk, then install MS-DOS:
Boot with MS-DOS Start Up disk. At A:\> prompt, type fdisk. you will now create
a Primary Dos Partition of at least256 Mb (to install pup001 at Puppy boot).

2. Post Installation Tweak to Grub Boot File:
When you reboot your computer, you'll be presented with a GRUB boot option
of either booting into MS DOS or Linux. If you want to configure the start
sequence to automatically boot into Linux, you must edit the menu.1st file:

Mechsus,
I read through your howto, very clear, can't see anything that needs changing in it, concise. Summary: great!

Though, I suppose if someone doesn't want a msdos partition, they don't have to do that, maybe if the hd is on the small size.
Because, booting from a live-CD, puppy will create the pup001 file in whatever is there, ext2, ext3, reiserfs, or vfat. A pup001 file in an installed puppy partition is no problem.

I know, installation to hd is a problem if the partition is "in use" with a pup001 in it, but you could boot the live-cd without a pupxxx, just running in ramdisk.
But, yeah, simpler to have the msdos/vfat partition -- and more flexible, to keep the pup001 file out of the way when you want to mess around with the hd installation, like wipe and reinstall.

My first experience with Puppy drove me nuts, until I figured out Puppy's personality.

All I wanted was for it to install the pup001 file on C: and it would not do it.

It would however install on other DOS drives. Just not the C drive.

Eventually, I figured out that it didn't install on the C: because it was FAT16. I converted it to FAT32 and it installed on the C: drive.

The version was 0.9.x - after that, I got rid of my FAT16 partitions in place of FAT32 and I've been getting along fine with Puppy and the FAT32 DOS partitions, thinking Puppy won't use the FAT16 the same as it will the FAT32.

Now I'm wondering, so I'll come right out and ask.

Barry, will Puppy use FAT16 as it does FAT32. If the answer is no, would you mind briefly explaining the difference?

And if there were 2 FAT32 partitions, will Puppy behave such that the priority partition for pup001 will be the second partition?_________________Puppy user since Oct 2004. Want FreeOffice? Get the sfs (English only).

MS-DOS version 6.22 FDISK has a hard drive limit of approximately 8.2 GB.

Maybe back in 1994 they thought that's all they would need it to do. I've never tried using it on a larger drive, so I can't say by experience what results a person would have or how it would perform on big drives.

I like having a bootable MS-DOS partition and some DOS software. I use MS-DOS version 7.10 and the downloadable MS FDISK with extra capacity.

If I'm setting up a drive from scratch, usually I'll install DOS. I try to anticipate my partitioning scheme in advance, and often use MS FDISK for entire partitioning process. I use it to make the primary partition, the extended partition and logical drives, which are going to be used by Linux later.

Suppose I was going to set up a big Linux distro on a 20 GB drive and only intended to have one Linux distro, I might partition it with FDISK roughly as follows:

Many Linux setup programs set the partition types and format them during the installation process. Typically, a distro setup (they vary so much) would want to default install on hda7 and make a swap file on hda6.

You just tell it OKAY or if it doesn't see it your way, define the / and swap partitions.

The point of this post is: to explain how one can use MS-DOS FDISK to successfully create the entire partitioning scheme for Linux if you want.

In visiting that site, I was a bit confused by step 6, which reads as follows:

Edit how? Why? I don't think I've ever had to edit the first file, and I've only had to edit fstab to add a Zip drive. Would this be the same if Puppy was to be the only OS on the hard drive and was installed into hda1?_________________Walt

This may not be c e r t a i n for sure, but in my experience it seems to want to install pup001 on the first available fat32 drive.

At least that's the way that it does it on my machine

There are a whole set of calculations Puppy makes. I don't know what they all are, but one of the factors seems to be checking free space. For example, I think it works such that if there is not enough free space on the first partition Puppy would normally want to use, it would look for another partition.

I do all option 1 installations manually, so I'm not too up on the default behavior, but it would be interesting to learn.

One thing, I've noted is, I can tell it with grub to install for example, a 256 mb pupxxx file on a given partition, which has less than 256 mb free space, Puppy will make a smaller pupxxx file leaving a few mb extra on the partition.

Though, I suppose if someone doesn't want a msdos partition, they don't have to do that, maybe if the hd is on the small size.

I attempted to install Puppy with only an MS-DOS partition and without installing MS-DOS 6.22 - but couldn't crack it - although there must be a method (?).

Bruce B wrote:

My first experience with Puppy drove me nuts, until I figured out Puppy's personality.

Tell me about it... 2 weeks messing with Puppy, hours on end looking at white text flashing up the screen, multiple screwed up installs - - I don't know what it is, but once the bug bites... You've got to master it. Woof, woof. Down boy!

regarding a pup001 on fat16 partition, i don't see any reason why not.
it is a limitation of the rc.sysinit boot script.
i think the probepart program identifies a fat16 partition as "msdos" and a fat32 as "vfat" ...i think. and the script ignores any msdos partitions.
I can't recall any reason for that limitation, maybe i just assumed all hard drives not yet taken to the rubbish tip would be fat32.

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